Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has accused Prime Minister Albin Kurti of Kosovo violating his country’s constitution by not including two Serbian ministers in his government.
Vucic claimed that including only one Serb minister in the government was a “flagrant violation of the Constitution of Kosovo”, and it sent out a “bad message”, RFE reported on Tuesday.
Kosovo’s new government was voted in on Monday. Kurti gave the Serb List party one ministry to lead, the Ministry of Communities and Returns. The party is the only representative of Serbs in Kosovo’s parliament, after it won all 10 seats assigned to this minority in the 120-seat parliament.
The Constitution demands in the case of more than 12 ministries, a third ministry should be headed by someone representing one of the many non-majority communities in the country.
Article 96/3 of the Constitution stipulates that “there shall be at least one (1) Minister from the Kosovo Serb Community and one (1) Minister from another Kosovo non-majority Community. If there are more than twelve (12) Ministers, the Government shall have a third Minister representing a Kosovo non-majority Community.”
The new government has 15 ministries, of which one is headed by Goran Rakic of the Serb List, one by Fikrim Damka of the Turkish Democratic Party of, and one by Elbert Krasniqi from the New Democratic Initiative of Kosovo representing the Egyptian community.
In addition, Emilija Rexhepi of the New Democratic Party, a representative of the Bosniak community has been appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Minority Affairs and Human Rights.
The Serb List party claims that one of the two ministries headed by other ethnic minorities belongs to them, and have vowed to take the issue to the Constitutional Court.
